Despite the positive qualities that Telemakhus possesses, he is significantly limited by his youth. He is unable to fight back against the acquisition of his father’s land and livestock, he holds no honorable standing amongst the people of Ithaka, and he has yet to develop the shrewd judgement of his father that may have allowed him to manage the problem of the suitors. Aside from the qualities that would have allowed him to undermine or defeat the suitors that inhabited his father’s home, he also lacked the necessary skills to even garner information about his father before Athena visited him. Athena “put a new spirit in him” (Book 1, Line 370) that inspired him to look for his father, and “lavished on him a sunlit grace” which helped him follow through with her plan. The fact of the matter is that Telemakhus, though well intentioned, was simply too limited by his youth and inexperience to be effective without the assistance of
Despite the positive qualities that Telemakhus possesses, he is significantly limited by his youth. He is unable to fight back against the acquisition of his father’s land and livestock, he holds no honorable standing amongst the people of Ithaka, and he has yet to develop the shrewd judgement of his father that may have allowed him to manage the problem of the suitors. Aside from the qualities that would have allowed him to undermine or defeat the suitors that inhabited his father’s home, he also lacked the necessary skills to even garner information about his father before Athena visited him. Athena “put a new spirit in him” (Book 1, Line 370) that inspired him to look for his father, and “lavished on him a sunlit grace” which helped him follow through with her plan. The fact of the matter is that Telemakhus, though well intentioned, was simply too limited by his youth and inexperience to be effective without the assistance of